SEOUL, South Korea 
North Korea refused Monday to heed international pressure to drop what are seen as plans for a long-range missile test as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived in Asia for talks with regional leaders.

Pyongyang's defiance came amid nationwide celebrations in North Korea on the 67th birthday of its reclusive leader Kim Jong Il, who reportedly suffered a stroke last year but is believed to have recovered significantly.

North Korea has been advancing preparations ahead of an expected test launch of its most advanced Taepodong-2 missile, according to South Korean media reports.

The North has also been stoking tension with its southern neighbor amid relations that have sharply deteriorated since the two countries held a summit meeting in October 2007.

Yet the country has also showed a softer side, with No. 2 leader Kim Yong Nam saying Sunday it was ready to improve relations with "friendly" countries, a comment apparently aimed at the United States.

Clinton, who arrived in Japan on Monday, told reporters en route to Asia that North Korea needs to live up to commitments to dismantle its nuclear programs, saying Washington is willing to normalize ties in return for nuclear disarmament.

"The North Koreans have already agreed to dismantling," she said. "We expect them to fulfill the obligations that they entered into."

Clinton is scheduled to visit South Korea on Thursday and Friday. She will also stop in Indonesia and China, where North Korea's nuclear development is expected to be discussed.

China has chaired since 2003 the so-called six-party talks aimed at the North's denuclearization. North Korea carried out an underground nuclear test in 2006.

In carefully calibrated language, North Korea acknowledged Monday that a rocket firing was likely, though denied it would be of a long-range missile, suggesting any launch would be part of its "space development."

"One will come to know later what will be launched" in North Korea, the state Korean Central News Agency said in a dispatch, which criticized the U.S. and other countries for allegedly sowing rumors about a missile test.

Kim Yong-hyun, a North Korea expert professor at Seoul's Dongguk University, said the North was playing nothing more than a semantic game.

"It means they're going to fire a missile as a satellite launch," Kim said, calling the space-program claim a "preventive" measure as a missile launch could result in punitive steps from the international community.

When North Korea test-fired a long-range missile in 1998, it claimed to have put a satellite into orbit. The country's last attempt at a launch, in 2006, ended in failure.

Washington, Tokyo and Seoul have repeatedly urged the North not to engage in provocative actions such as launching a missile.

South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan on Monday warned the North that any launch – whether a missile or satellite – would be in violation of a U.N. Security Council resolution in 2006 that demanded Pyongyang "suspend all activities related to its ballistic missile program."

In Pyongyang, North Koreans celebrated Kim's birthday by viewing a special exhibition of flowers cultivated in his name and displayed beside a replica of a missile, APTN North Korea footage showed.